An access network (e.g., a local access and transport area (LATA)) refers to series of wires, cables, and equipment lying between a consumer/business telephone termination point (a point at which a telephone connection reaches a customer) and a local telephone exchange. The local telephone exchange contains banks of automated switching equipment to direct a call or connection to the consumer. The access network is perhaps one of the oldest assets a telecommunication provider owns, and is constantly evolving, growing as new customers are connected and as new services are offered. This makes the access network one of the most complex networks in the world to maintain and keep track of.
Access transport management systems (ATMSs) provide network engineers with core functionality to manage a nationwide access network (e.g., a telecommunications network). Access transport management systems automate the process of identifying local exchange carrier (LEC) and competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) access circuits that have sub-optimal routes, and moving such circuits to less costly routes and/or facilities. Access transport management systems may include sets of procedures that conform to user-defined business logic. Depending on given optimization parameters, access transport management systems may execute a suitable set of procedures against each circuit in order to determine cost-saving opportunities. For example, in the case of digital signal 1 (DS1) line optimization, access transport management systems may use entrance facility (e.g., an entrance to a building for both public and private network service cables, including antenna transmission lines) spares to discover zero-mile digital signal 3 (DS3) lines, subtending DS1 lines (e.g., subtending allows a node to feed traffic to another node upstream), and/or swinging DS1 lines.
A collocation is a space, leased at a local exchange carrier's (LEC's) wire center, where a telecommunication provider may place transmission equipment, such as add/drop multiplexers (ADMs), light terminating equipment (LTE), etc. The telecommunication provider's long distance network is extended beyond their point of presence (POP) to the collocations, thereby eliminating the need to lease capacity from the LEC to transport circuits from their POPs to the collocations. At a collocation, a telecommunication provider's customer circuit is handed off to the LEC, which then carries the circuit to its final destination within its territory. The telecommunication provider incurs access costs, payable to the LEC, for this service. However, current access transport management systems are unable to propose new collocations for access networks and to identify optimal collocation locations for access networks.